It took a while, but No. 6 Wichita State turns back South Dakota State

Wichita State was fresh off its first true road victory over a top-25 team in five years, but Mike Daum and his band of three-point-shooting South Dakota State Jackrabbits didn’t allow the Shockers a pushover in their return to Koch Arena.

Daum torched the Shockers for 31points, South Dakota State made 14three-pointers, and the Jackrabbits put the Shockers in a deficit (as much as 13 points) for longer than 24 minutes.

But No. 6 Wichita State is a difficult force to stop at Koch Arena and a late rally by the Shockers delivered a 95-85victory over South Dakota State on Tuesday. The Shockers won their 23rd straight game at Koch Arena to improve to 7-1, while SDSU fell to 7-4.

The game-winning surge for the Shockers began after SDSU took a 76-67 lead with 8:52 remaining.

Over the next 10 possessions, a four-minute stretch, WSU outscored SDSU 16-1 with its defense forcing four turnovers. The pivotal moment came from a Morris rainbow three-pointer from the top of the key, which splashed in and ignited the crowd and forced SDSU to burn a timeout after its lead was trimmed to 76-74.

Brown followed with a dunk the next possession to tie the score, then a Morris finish gave WSU its first lead, 78-77, in 24 minutes. SDSU could do little to stem the momentum after the Shockers took the lead.

After falling behind by nine with 8:52 left, WSU won the rest of the game 28-9.

Taylor Eldridge with Kansas.com and The Wichita Eagle break down Wichita State’s 95-85 victory over a hit South Dakota State team at Koch Arena Tuesday. (Video by Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle) McClatchyfsalazar@wichitaeagle.com

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“We even talked about that at halftime, trying to get the crowd back into it and get our fans riled up to give us that extra boost we needed,” Morris said.

The comeback was the second time this season WSU has erased a double-figure deficit in the second half, as the Shockers came back from 18 down against California to beat the Bears 92-82 in the Maui Invitational.

It once again was sparked by Marshall’s switch to a diamond zone press that funnels the ball to the corners and traps opponents. SDSU finished with 12 turnovers, eight in the second half.

“Part of what gave us the advantage is playing loose and free and scoring the ball,” SDSU coach TJ Otzelberger said.”What has been successful for us is not trying to slow that down, so we kept our foot on the gas. Yet that speeds up the tempo of the game up and that’s what they were trying to do, create more possessions in the second half.

“If you get the lead by blitzing, we don’t want to go to the prevent defense.”

It all made for a thrilling night of basketball between two teams operating at a high level on the offensive end, but it was also somewhat of a troubling performance by WSU’s defense — ranked as one of the most efficient in the nation.

South Dakota State shredded the Shockers in the first half and broke nearly every opponent scoring record in the Gregg Marshall era. The Jackrabbits led 50-42 with their 50 points being the most scored against WSU in the first half in Marshall’s 11 years (one more than Oklahoma State scored last year at Intrust Bank Arena) and their 1.47 points per possession also topped any past performance.

The 85 points allowed was the most by a Shockers team at Koch Arena since the renovation in the 2003-04 season.

“I was not very happy,” Marshall said. “That’s not he norm.”

Daum and SDSU’s bigs tortured WSU’s defense on high ball screens in the middle of the court. WSU couldn’t figure out how it wanted to cover the play, as too often Daum or a SDSU big would set a screen and instead of rolling to the rim would pop to the perimeter and can a three-point shot with WSU’s big man still at the free-throw line.

Reed Tellinghuisen and Ian Theisen added a combined five three-pointers to go along with Daum’s seven triples.

“It was just a bad scheme on our part,” Marshall said. “We didn’t do a very good job. We confused them. We had too many different concepts. Basically in the second half we decided to switch all ball screens one through four, regardless of the matchups, to try to get them out of rhythm on their catch-and-shoot shots.”

Frankamp set the school record for consecutive games with a three-pointer, making 3 of 6 beyond the arc to extend his streak to 30 straight games.